


no angels could beckon me back

by onekingdomonce



Series: Pallas & Lazar [2]
Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2019-01-23
Packaged: 2019-07-03 00:07:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15807315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onekingdomonce/pseuds/onekingdomonce
Summary: Pallas was an Akielon highborn, an aristocratic man of birth who'd always had his life set out for him, sculpted from expectations and legacy. He was to serve for his king, bring his country pride, and eventually be married off to the greatest prospect that his birthright could provide.It was simple, and something Pallas had never given a second thought to. He knew his obligations, and it had never crossed his mind to question them. His eminent fate had never compromised his rising through the ranks, nor had it impacted his many dalliances. They were brief, uncomplicated, unthreatening to his future.That was, until he met Lazar.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> im not entirely sure if/when this is going to be finished (though i definitely hope it will be bc lazar and pallas own my ass) but i wanted to at least post what i have so far. let me know if youre into it and ill try my best to push though with it.  
> title is from animal by troye sivan.

Pallas had taken many lovers in his life.

Though he was only in his early twenties, he had still spent much of his life traveling throughout the kingdom, experiencing all the delicacies his country had to offer. Whether it was his years spent in the army or all of the aristocratic endeavors that his birth had subjected him to, there was no shortage of men for Pallas to make his way through. Be that a son of a noble, a stable boy from his family’s home in Kesus, a man in an old tavern or a fellow soldier he’d shared company in the barracks with, he had admired them equally. Despite his early age, Pallas had been sure that he had sampled them all, and that there was nothing left that could surprise him.

That was, until he met Lazar. 

Lazar had come into Pallas life like the storms that took Isthima in the summer: a slow building gradualness that could be acknowledged without begging concern, before hitting in a full burst of nature that threatened to wash the streets with ocean water and crumble homes into ruins. 

Pallas hadn’t been entirely sure what to think of the man at first. Since they had caught sight of each other at Charcy across distinguishing lines, he had began to make his awareness of Pallas known in minute ways that were some odd combination of lazy and self assured, like it would take nothing more than a slide of his eyes and a low whistle for Pallas to be lifting his skirts for him at the nearest corner of privacy. It was part insulting, and part encouragement when Pallas did simple things like walk across camp borders or slather his body in oil before stepping up to his wrestling opponent.

It was inevitable that they ended up in bed together (if behind the barracks, followed by the first empty tent they could find constituted as a bed). Pallas wasn’t in the habit of denying himself the things he wanted, and he wasn’t a fool. He had known from the instant they had locked eyes that he was going to have him, it was only a matter of time.

Lazar was different, in ways that Pallas couldn’t initially put his finger on. At first Pallas had thought it was because of his Veretian roots, but it had only taken the weeks following the death of Kastor-Exalted where he spent unlimited time in the presence of countless other Veretians to see that they were all just more of the same, and that there was something else that set Lazar apart. 

Pallas didn’t know much about him at first, or vice-versa. He knew that he was a soldier in the Veretian Prince’s guard, that he knew little to no Akielon, and that he fucked better than anyone Pallas had ever spent a night with. That fact alone was enough to sate any of his initial curiosities, and the notion was only reinforced the more time that passed. A sizable amount of Veretian soldiers had returned to Arles to ensure that it was protected on all fronts following the trial that had brought the demise of the Regent, but Lazar was part of the contingent that remained in Akielos under his prince while he waited for Damianos-Exalted to heal. Because of that, they had nothing but time, for the unforeseeable future.

Pallas hadn’t particularly minded the language barrier, despite the minor difficulties that it offered them. Pallas’ highborn upbringing had ensured that he knew an appropriate amount of Veretian, and if he was being honest with himself, he found Lazar’s lack of Akielon and his muddled attempts to speak the language quite charming. 

He was trying to learn, to his credit. While they mostly spoke in Veretian, Pallas would occasionally point out an object and offer the Akielon word, and Lazar would repeat it back to him. His accent was strong, his tongue softening the harsh Akielon vowels in a way that was wildly contradicting to his rough demeanor, and that coupled with the determined set of his brow each time never failed to make Pallas’s chest temporarily feel like it was contracting. 

“Don’t they teach other languages where you are from?” Pallas asked one evening in Veretian, after he had asked Lazar for his chiton and was handed his sword. 

It was quiet outside in the dead of the night, only the sound of grasshoppers entering the small confines of his tent. Lazar had snuck in, as he tended to, barely bothering with either language before dropping to his knees.

Lazar turned his head to face Pallas, the tips of his dark hair grazing the pillow. “Of course they do,” he said. “The prince speaks Akielon.”

“The prince is royalty,” Pallas said, thinking of the quick glimpse he had gotten of prince Laurent that morning when he had been guarding Exalted’s sickroom, bustling past Pallas and through the doors with an intent look on his face. Surely he spoke the Akielon language, growing up in a palace with what was likely the finest tutors. It was not as if he had someone teaching him the language alone, in private, like Pallas was teaching Lazar.

“And I’m not,” Lazar said. “So I don’t see why I would.”

“I am not royal either,” Pallas said. “But I speak more than one language.”

Lazar made an offhand sound at that, a short laugh that didn’t manage to be more than a breath. He had an arm crossed behind his head, the line of his bicep tensing as he looked back up. “You and I don’t exactly come form the same kind of places.”

Pallas rolled his head back as well, pondering the idea. He thought of the home he had grown up in, the different ones he had taken lodgings in. The prearranged dances and the prim negotiations the nobility would hold, the ones Pallas was required to attend when he was not otherwise occupied. He tried to insert Lazar into that image, to view him side by side with his father, and then tried to stifle his smile.

“Where _do_ you come from?” Pallas asked him, wanting the adequate information that could help him paint the proper picture. Lazar was good with his hands, perhaps he came from a family of blacksmiths. 

“Ladehors,” Lazar said. “Why did you ask about languages?”

Pallas frowned. “What?”

“You brought it up when I gave you the sword you asked for.”

“Oh,” Pallas said. “Because I asked for my chiton.”

“Oh,” Lazar repeated, nodding a few times. His eyes moved up the length of Pallas’ outstretched legs as he did, and Pallas saw as they paused by his stomach, head stilling as well as he looked up. “Why would you need that?”

Pallas blinked twice, unsure if he had perhaps misunderstood. Lazar tended to forget that his Veretian was not perfect and spoke a little fast for him. He braced a hand on the bedroll. “To dress,” he said, pushing himself onto an elbow.

But his efforts went intercepted, his body stilling when Lazar pushed his hand above his head, the tight grip of his fingers similar to the way his legs were suddenly straddling his waist. 

“I didn’t say I was finished with you,” Lazar said, his other hand going loosely around Pallas’ neck as he bent down and took his mouth.

Pallas wasn’t entirely sure what it was they were doing, or what was compelling the two of them to continue to go back to each other. There was certainly no shortage of places for the other to look for a tumble, and he knew their time together was to be limited, seeing that Lazar would be returning to Vere soon.

Perhaps that was it, Pallas thought as he rolled on top of Lazar. He knew who he was, and what his future would entail. Pallas could do whatever he wanted now, but he wasn’t negligent enough to entirely ignore his eventual fate. His birth had always promised him to another, someone who couldn’t possibly be farther away from Lazar and the person that he was. Dallying with someone who was similar to him, someone who would always be there was pointless. That could only potentially court sentiment, whereas with Lazar it was nothing more than an exchange of pleasure, and physical pleasure was always interchangeable. 

Lazar was a good fighter, a better fuck, but most important was his expendability. Whatever transpired between them now was only temporary, and as long as things remained the way they were, Pallas didn’t see that becoming a problem.

 

It had been a long day. The Veretian captain Enguerran and Nikandros, newly appointed Kyros of Ios had implemented new drills at the king’s bidding, and the soldiers had been up and in the training yard from the first sign of light, not sparing a moment of precious time. By the end of the sessions Pallas’ bones ached, his limbs feeling like they could give out at any moment, his fingers stiff like the concept of uncurling them from around the hilt of his sword would be an impossibility. 

Pallas valued it, the burning strain of it all, a sign of a successful day and the proof of his body being pushed to its greatest limits. He relished it, but not nearly as much as he relished the taste if Lazar’s cock, his hands tight in Pallas’ hair as he pushed deeper into his mouth.

Pallas’ jaw ached, his knees feeling sore on the ground as he gripped the backs of Lazar’s thighs. He was still dressed, not having bothered to remove his blue livery when he entered the tent once silence had fallen over the camp, and Pallas didn’t bother to do more than unlace the front of his pants before opening his mouth for him.

Pallas kept his eyes opened, from the strong line of Lazar’s jaw or the way his neck rolled as he swallowed, his own lip pressed between his teeth. He watched Pallas as he pulled out, slowly, his hooded eyes reflecting in the dim lamplight as he thrust himself back in.

The sound Pallas made was muffled, his tongue laving around the sides as he took Lazar in as deep as he wanted, pushing past his own barriers for him. The noise Lazar made was roughened, a string of words that were too muddled for Pallas to understand in his dazed state leaving his mouth in open breathes as he continued to thrust past his lips.

Pallas was unable to move like this, restrained by the strong grip of Lazar’s hands on either side of his head and the unyielding rhythm of his hips pumping forward as he fucked Pallas’ mouth as he wished, as Pallas wanted him to. 

There was something about Lazar when he was like this, unrestrained, like the barely contained energy that he exuded each day on the sawdust against men who couldn’t handle his strength was being expended on Pallas now. He didn’t treat Pallas like a man of refined birth, a highborn noble who required polishing and dainty treatment. Here, like this, he treated him like a treasured find in an old brothel, like he was the only person capable of matching his most raw desires and wants. 

Pallas’ scalp stung, the roots of his hair burning as Lazar tugged sharply, one hand sliding down to the nape of Pallas’ neck for different leverage as he pushed into his mouth once more, twice, his nails biting into his skin as he came inside Pallas’ mouth with a loud, unabashed groan. Pallas didn’t release his hold against his legs, not straying from his position as he swallowed down all of his spend, watching the look on Lazar’s face as he did.

The way Lazar looked after climax was something else that Pallas liked- had slowly found that he liked. His cheeks held the slightest tinge of a flush, though Pallas could never be sure if that was simply a sign of exertion that his lighter completion couldn’t hide, or something else entirely. His already dark eyes were like flames wavering against stained glass windows. His face, usually sharp with stark lines of determination and surety were softer, lighter, a layer of confident bravado temporarily stripped away so that he appeared years younger, vulnerable. 

Pallas accepted his hand as he was pulled up off the ground, bringing them back to their near equal. Lazar released him after a moment, the edge of his lips quirking as he raised a thumb to the side of his mouth and wiped at the skin.

Footsteps sounded a few yards away, dead grass crunching under what Pallas couldn’t be sure were sandaled feet or boots. He took Lazar’s wrist in a light grip, swiping his tongue along the finger before finally releasing him, putting a single step of space between them. 

Lazar followed him, as Pallas expected that he would, though he wasn’t quite expecting the way Lazar placed his palms on both of Pallas’ cheeks, pressing their lips together before implementing his own bit of space.

He said something as he adjusted his pants, words coated in the honeyed rumble that often came with release, though _you are_ was all Pallas had been able to make out of the Veretian words, the third one foreign to him. 

Lazar had a hand on the entrance of the tent, his head turned one last time, and it was only after the cloth flap fell closed and left Pallas to himself that he realized his heart was pounding. 

 

To Pallas’ surprise, it was not just Lazar’s ability in a foreign language that was progressively improving. His Akielon was getting better, gradually, in that he was able to point out random words or state occasional phrases when Pallas wasn’t expecting it. They were usually broken and often incorrect, but the fact alone that he could remember a sufficient amount of vocabulary was a success in itself, and the accent that he couldn’t seem to drop was something that only made his valiant attempts sweeter. It was unclear why he was trying to learn, given that they could handle most conversations in Veretian, but his resilience behind each carefully pronounced syllable was something Pallas was slowly growing familiar with, in more ways than one.

“Who are they?” Pallas had asked that afternoon, watching as two men walked out of one of the palace corridors and into the courtyard. He was standing with a group of men, passing around a canteen of water. Aktis was at his right, Lazar at his left.

“From Patras,” Lazar said in Akielon. He spoke easily enough, though he pronounced it as ‘ _Pah-trahs_.’

“What do you know of them?” Lydos asked, his shoulder on a wide stone pillar.

Lazar shrugged, accepting the water. “Huet is trying to fuck the tall one.”

But it was not just Lazar who was learning. Pallas had never known that Veretian had different dialects, or that it varied depending on what province you lived in. Lazar also taught him a few Vaskian terms of mountain slang, though none of them would be of much use outside of a bed. When Pallas asked him how he acquired any knowledge of the Vaskian language Lazar had only grinned, crossing his arms behind his head.

“Do you- with women?” Pallas asked. He heard how incredulous he sounded.

“I’m a man of many tastes,” Lazar replied. They were back to speaking Veretian, Akielon saved for a word here and there.

Pallas looked down at him, blinking. He thought of the scarce bits of knowledge he had heard about Veretian customs, how strict they were with who they were allowed to take to bed. “Is it not forbidden?” 

“It can be our secret,” Lazar said as a response. He placed a hand on Pallas’ thigh. “Have you been to Vask?”

“No,” Pallas said.

Lazar hummed. His fingers trailed the edge of his chiton. “They would like you there.”

Pallas’ knowledge of Vask was limited. “Why?”

Lazar made a different sound. “For the same reasons I like you, I’d guess.”

Pallas’ hand – halfway to Lazar’s – stopped. His boots were discarded at the entrance, his jacket removed. He looked comfortable on his back, feet crossed at the ankles, not seeming to care in the slightest that he was lounging in Pallas’ tent like it was his own. Lazar had told him earlier in the evening that he wouldn’t see him that night, and Pallas had been too caught off guard with pleasant surprise when Lazar had still shown up to question it.

Pallas lowered himself down the bedroll, turning his body onto the side so he was better facing him. He waited for Lazar to open his eyes, only then taking his hand and placing it on himself.

“Tell me,” he said, moving it lower. “What it is like in Vask.”

Lazar grinned again. 

 

For all the men that Pallas has been with, he had never spent so much significant time with a specific one.

It was not that he had any problem with consistency per se, more so that no one had managed to hold his attention long enough to go back to. He was never one to build up such a routine, to close his eyes at night thinking there would be something, someone waiting for him the next day. Such concepts were abstract, conceptual, and a notion better suited for a future. More specifically, a future that wasn’t filled with contracts, unions and obligations. 

Seated on Lazar’s lap with his legs on either side of his waist, those realities felt far, far away. The last thing Pallas had felt walking across the courtyard and picking his way through the private, singular Veretian tents was obligated. Lazar’s shirt and jacket long ago discarded, his own chiton unpinned so It was pooled at his waist, the only thing Pallas felt as Lazar rubbed a calloused thumb in circles around his nipple while mouthing at his neck was _alive_. 

Pallas spanned his fingers against his arms, the sensation in his stomach clenching when he felt the way the muscles rippled under his hands. Lazar raised his face to his, barely managing a kiss before Pallas was pushing him down onto his back, his hands moving to his shoulders.

Lazar’s hands went to his waist, reflexively, giving a not so subtle shift of his hips as his palms trailed down the sides of his thighs. “No foreplay today?”

It wasn’t a word Pallas was familiar with before Lazar. It seemed silly that Veretians needed a word for every individual action. “Do _you_ need foreplay?”

He tried to pronounce it the way Lazar had, but he still heard the way his tongue struggled around the smooth vowels, jagged shards to polished glass. 

His smile was impish, like it always was in these definitive moments. “Get my oil.”

Pallas remained on his knees as he crouched over one of his trunks, moving clothing aside until he found an inner compartment stuffed with cloth. He unwound it, shifting things aside until he came across a glass vessel. 

The vial was wider than the ones Pallas was used to; the glass tinged a darker shade. He uncorked it, and the blunt sound it made had Lazar lifting on an elbow and turning to him, shaking his head only a second after Pallas realized it was the oil meant for filling the lanterns. 

“That’s the wrong one,” Lazar said, motioning to a different compartment of the trunk. Pallas nodded, absently, peering into the vial.

“I realize,” he said, lifting it to his nose. He saw Lazar looking at him, lowering it to his lap. “It smells of lavender.”

Lazar was turned to him, pushing onto a second elbow. “It came from Vere,” he said. “Oils are typically scented.”

“Not all of them are,” Pallas said, having been in enough Veretian tents to know that there were non fragranced ones. He looked around the small perimeter of the tent, thinking about the way the oil slowly burnt as the flames diminished. He thought of the acrid scent that spread throughout, the way it tended to linger and make him feel as if it clinged to his body, even in the mornings.

He raised his head. “You like the scent of lavenders?” 

A wasp had flown in through the billowing folds, its quick movements seemingly captivating. “No.”

Pallas leaned back on his palms, considering putting the oil to use so he could better see Lazar’s expression. “Should I pick you flowers after I’ve sucked your cock?”

Lazar was sitting up now, his mouth set in a way that desperately made Pallas want to laugh. He looked like a petulant child, arms moving across his bare chest. “Are we going to fuck or not?”

Pallas couldn’t help it, a bit of laughter leaking out from between pressed lips, feeling like some of it had seeped out from the confides of his chest, vibrating against his ribcage. He was moving forward, helplessly, not quite able to stifle his lingering smile, even as their lips pressed together.

 

Pallas’ future was not something he thought of much, at least not in the detailed sense. When he was eight his eldest sister had been married off to the son of a noble from Sicyon, close enough to the Delphan border that his father hoped to maintain some of intel, along with benefiting from their chain of vineyards. She had had to sever ties with her young handmaiden who always flushed in his sister’s presence, and Pallas remembered passing by the lower quarters at night where the washing was being done, the soft sound of weeping coming from beneath the door. When Pallas had asked his sister about it, she only patted his cheek and told him he would understand when it was his time.

That was a response Pallas had received many times, growing up. When his sister had to leave someone that Pallas had seen make her smile more than any other. When his parents would argue behind closed doors and he was too curious to ignore it. When his brother, nearing the age that his sister had been when she left, disappeared.

Pallas had never given the choice that his brother had made much contemplation, even once he had begun to understand it. His thoughts of him were more tangled up in reminiscences of sitting in their courtyard, watching him spar for hours on end and thinking, _this is what I want to do._ They never strayed far from those singular moments, those days spent training on the sawdust together. And yet, for reasons unbeknownst to him, memories of the morning he had woken up to find his brother’s chambers empty, along with his horse and favored sword seem to slip into his every day thoughts more and more, unwelcome and unignorable. 

Perhaps that was why Pallas was thinking about it that evening, the white flowers and silk dresses that his home would be filled with one day, unlike the second pair of boots or the dagger that was currently left by his own things. He wanted to place all of his focus on the way Lazar’s hands felt under his chiton, his tongue tracing the line of his lips, yet he couldn’t stop the brief flashes of neatly scrawled ink on the folded over parchment that he had discarded the instant Lazar entered, telling him of how lovely the daughter of the Kyros of Aegina was. 

Lazar noticed as well, it seemed. Only a few minutes of this had passed when he puled away, his hand still on the inside of Pallas’ thigh. “What?”

His lips were wet, kiss swollen. Pallas lifted his eyes from them. “Nothing.”

Lazar looked at him for a few moments, saying nothing. Pallas had seemed him look similarly at a target while spinning a spear between loose fingers, rearing back after a minute. Pallas shifted. 

“Is it to do with the papers you were reading before?”

Pallas was silent, weighing all the different responses he could offer in his mind. it was odd to talk about, odder with Lazar, though he couldn’t be too sure why.

Lazar leaned back on a hand. “What was it?”

“Nothing important,” Pallas said. He tried to extend a hand, but Lazar only swatted it away with an amused tilt of his mouth.

“Did you steal someone’s letters?”

Pallas reared his own hand back, horrified. “That is dishonorable.”

He watched as Lazar rubbed a palm across his forehead, muttering a few words that he couldn’t understand. He asked of them, but Lazar only waved him off again. 

“Tell me,” Lazar said. 

Pallas drew up a leg, winding his arm around his knee. It was new, different for Lazar to be engaging him in something other than sex this intently. Maybe that was why he felt a sudden urge to talk.

“They are letters,” he amended. “From my parents.”

He waited for some kind of reaction to that, only to receive none. Pallas had spoken Veretian more those past few weeks than he ever had in his life, and his comfortability in the language had improved enough that he rarely needed to think before speaking, hearing the way Lazar spoke helping even more. He almost missed the slight hesitation, the excuse to put his attention elsewhere. 

“All right,” Lazar said.

“They write to me every so often,” he continued.

Silence. He half expected some comment on the young soldier writing to his mother and father, but Lazar only gazed back at him with the same blank expression that Pallas hoped he was giving.

“This one specifically was about Calista of Patras,” Pallas said. “My prospective wife.”

A strong breeze bustled the tent flaps, common for the final summer nights in Ios. 

“Wife,” Lazar said.

“Future wife,” Pallas corrected. 

The air around them was still, the space between them silent. Pallas tried to put his finger on why he felt like he was holding his breath. This wasn’t necessarily the first time he’d had this conversation, and there was nothing unique about this particular one. And yet, some part of him felt like his legs were dangling off the edge of a precipice. 

Lazar’s grin was slow building. It was languid, a little crooked, familiar in a way that Pallas almost mirrored back. “You’re marrying a woman?”

Pallas flushed. He hoped that his complexion didn’t show it, but was sure that the quick aversion of his eyes did. “I- well, yes.”

“Care to tell me why?” Lazar said, nudging him with an arm. “Am I keeping you unsatisfied?”

His neck still felt warm. He wanted to put out the lanterns, to go outside for air. “It’s expected.” 

“Expected,” Lazar repeated.

“Yes.”

Lazar was no longer looking at him, but he still had a wry smile as he shook his head. “Fucking aristocrats,” he said. And then he laughed, shaking his head again.

He hadn’t expected to hear his laugh, the low, almost reserved sound. “What?”

“I don’t know what tomorrow will bring me,” Lazar said. “And you already know how your life will end.”

“It is my duty,” Pallas said, automatically. He had lost track of how long they were sitting there, talking. 

“Well, I think it sounds awful,” Lazar said.

Something about that gave Pallas pause, had him looking at Lazar with a more considering eye. He was reclined casually, comfortably, seeming entirely unruffled by the discussion of marriage. Disinterested even, aside for Pallas’ personal involvement. “You don’t believe in marriage?”

“I don’t believe in doing things I don’t want to,” Lazar said, looking up at the tent poles. 

Pallas was watching him in the same way. Lazar wasn’t someone who typically spoke of himself at length, that much was apparent. Testing the possibility like the dip of his toe in cold water he said, “what _do_ you want?”

Lazar straightened his neck, looking back at him. He reached a hand out, and suddenly his fingers were curled around Pallas’ wrist, tugging.

“I want,” he said, pulling Pallas down on top of him. “For you to fuck me.”

 

It was the middle of the night. Or nearly morning, depending on how Pallas looked it. He had yet to fall asleep, his legs drawn up with only a thin sheet pulled across his lower body. He thought it might be the hot air keeping him up, thick and humid, but growing up in Akielos had made sure he was accustomed to such weather. If he was being truthful, then it likely had more to do with the fact that Lazar was still laying beside him, despite how long ago they had both finished, Lazar even redressing most of the way before taking his spot back up on Pallas’ bedroll. That had immediately sparked in Pallas’ mind, and it was just about as uncommon as the way Pallas’ thoughts were reverberating in his mind. 

He was thinking of that evening, the way he had been sitting on a log by the fire, a mug of wine between his hands when Aktis had joined him. Aktis was a few years older than him, as most of the men here were, but their age difference did nothing to impact the way they had grown together. Their close proximity and similar circles had allowed them to train together, to aspire together, and those twinned ambitions had brought the two of them here, serving under their king. 

“You keep watching him,” Aktis had said. 

A second passed, another, Lazar laughing at something another soldier said before he turned to Aktis. “And?”

“You don’t just watch,” Aktis continued. He had a drink of his own in his hand, but made no move to sip from it. “You look, like his attention should be yours.”

Pallas scoffed. He lifted his mug to his mouth, licked the wine from his lips. “He’s not mine.”

“No,” Aktis agreed, looking at Lazar himself. “What would your mother and father think?”

“It’s not-“ Pallas frowned. “He-“

Aktis lifted a brow, dark and naturally shaped with a strong arch. Pallas considered how to reply, _what_ to reply, when the spot on his other side was taken. Pallas hadn’t needed to look, he knew the way that arm felt around his shoulder. 

“Is this for me?” Lazar said, taking the wine from his grasp and drinking. Long, deep gulps that left his lips colored and wet.

“You share drinks?” Huet asked, another Veretian soldier who Pallas did not know well but knew Lazar considered a friend. He had taken the spot across from him and Aktis without him noticing, two more men joining them shortly after.

Lazar set it down on the grass, watching Huet as he did. “We share more than wine.”

Pallas had glanced at him, the fire making his face feel hot. He hadn’t minded the insinuation, not really. He was sure everyone there wanted Lazar, wanted to be in his place, but it was still an odd thing to be spoken about in public, and only made more so when Lazar had brazenly followed him to his tent.

Now, Pallas turned his head to the side so he could watch the way Lazar dozed with his eyes closed, the tips of his fingers brushing along his midsection. He had a scar on his face, small, a faint line running down the side of his left brow in a jagged line. He reached out to touch it, and it was the quick, embarrassed withdrawal of his hand that had Lazar opening one eye.

“What?” he murmured. His voice was languid with sleep, but Pallas knew he had been awake from the way his breathing had not yet evened out.

Pallas had pulled his hand back to his side, a little mortified by his impulsive act. He thought back again to the way they had all sat together for well over an hour, the way Lazar’s hand had only moved from his shoulders to the top of his knee. 

“You really don’t care?” Pallas asked.

Lazar had both eyes opened then. “What?”

“To talk about-“ He didn’t know how to phrase it, this. He pushed himself up into a sitting position, motioning to where Lazar’s head was now resting by his hip.

Lazar followed the movement of his hand, his gaze trailing up Pallas’ arm and to his face before he snorted, looking back up. “I’m the luckiest man here,” he said. “Why should I care who knows it.”

Pallas’ lips parted, his fingers gripping the edges of the sheet so he didn’t do something stupid again, looking at the ground and remaining silent. He felt, a bit ridiculously, as if he was in the middle of a battle of long sword when a second dagger was suddenly pulled on him, and he didn’t quite know how to subdue the feeling.

Lazar sat up, abruptly, the bedroll ruffling beneath them as his knees pushed into it, turning so they were facing each other. He looked at Pallas like he was waiting for something.

“Those matters are private,” Pallas said, keeping his voice neutral. “And you don’t even pretend to deny it.” 

“Deny it?” Lazar repeated. “Who am I, Damen?”

The name took a moment for Pallas to register, one too long. By the time he realized who Lazar was referring to, his brows were tugging in a downwards line without him even meaning to. “You should not talk that way about Exalted.” 

Lazar made a noncommittal sound, a flick of his wrist. “He doesn’t mind,” he said. “He’s used to it from the march south, all that time with Veretians.”

Pallas bristled at the familiar tone. “He is my king.”

Lazar’s hands were against his chest. They were crossed against his middle, tugging on the loose laces of his shirt that fell down beside each other. “I never said otherwise.”

“Then you should speak of him with respect.”

Lazar was unflinching in the way he was looking at Pallas, and it did nothing to deter the way he looked at him back. He didn’t know what this was, this sudden rush or irritation – of _despondency_ – that he felt, only that it came on like a wave and it didn’t seem to be going away. He felt as if-

Lazar was pushing himself up. His expressed was crossed with something new, a shadow passing over face as he looked down at Pallas. “Have I upset you, my lord?”

The wave crashed, dousing his bones in rattling ice water. Partially from the statement, partially from the way the last two words were spoken in Akielon. “Excuse me?”

His feet were in his boots. He was tugging the laces together, and Pallas struggled with the sense that something was slipping out of his grasp.

“Do you think I’m one of your prim, repressed suitors who need to act polished for you?” he asked. Pallas thought the word meant _prim,_ his grasp on Veretian felt a little disarrayed at that moment. He sat there, wordless, simply watched as Lazar finished doing up the front laces of his jacket, pulling at the collar one strap too tight. “Or have I spoken out of line?”

Not for the first time, Pallas wondered how it was that Lazar made it to the personal guard of a soon to be king. He had seen him train, he knew his capabilities, but he also saw the way he tended to carry himself with a certain level of utmost indifference. He often toyed with the notion of him catching someone’s eye, of his impeccable abilities bringing him under the prince and a hearty compensation, without much of his own ardor either way. The thought, once again, nestled in his head. 

“Even if you didn’t chose to be here,” Pallas said, watching Lazar retreat and ignoring the way he felt it in his throat, “it does not mean you shouldn’t honor your royalty.”

Outside, the camp was long asleep, the palace surely the only place where people bustled at all hour of the night to keep their king alive. 

Inside, Lazar stopped straight-backed with a hand on the post, his shoulders a rigid line. He turned, drawing the flap aside before setting his eyes on Pallas’.

“I would die for my prince,” Lazar said, taking the step out. “You know nothing about the choices I’ve made.”

 

Pallas was patrolling the courtyard, as was one of his tasks that day. It was mid morning, early enough that the trees were still bathed in a golden light that poured out onto the rest of the gardens, making each flower and blossom seem like something out of a dream, a honeyed fairytale. Pallas’ hands were behind his back, his eyes not staying in one place as he walked the long grounds, several other soldiers visible a ways off. 

He circulated the fountain in the center of the grass, its three straight levels that decreased in size as they rose, water spurting out of the top and trickling down the ledges into a stream where lily pads floated throughout. A bird landed on the marble animal mounted on top, its musical chirping soft in the still air.

The bird was blue, the sort of shade that only needed to be threaded in gold to resemble the livery that he would see if he looked anywhere around himself, and yet he hadn’t actually _seen_ in days. 

The bird jumped from one foot to another, flapping its wings enough to take him onto the edge of the fountain, to the base, then off into the air where it flew far enough that Pallas needed to pivot his body to follow the path it made, eventually setting Pallas’ gaze on the two figures standing beside the pillars. 

They were under an archway, wide and curving upwards with winding vines, pink flowers trailing down its ends. The pillars were thick, enough shade provided to block out the blaze of the sun and to offer a sturdy surface for Exalted to rest his back, leveling the weight of his body.

The fact that the king was outside was shocking in itself, and a testament to how far his recovery was progressing. More than once on guard duty outside his sickroom, Pallas had heard the Veretian prince reiterating to the physicians in an eerily calm voice that all decisions regarding when Damianos left his bed went through him, and that they were to ignore Damianos altogether. The notion itself was preposterous, and yet he hadn’t seen him leave his sickroom until now.

The prince was by his side, a mere few inches between them as if his close proximity alone was holding Damianos up, or holding him together. His posture was straight, bordering on rigid, and even from his vantage Pallas could see the way his eyes would rarely lift from Damianos’ mid section. It was there they stayed, unmoving, until a knuckle was brought beneath his chin.

Pallas took a step back just as the prince lifted his head, both of them acting in a similar kneejerk reaction. Damianos was smiling, a certain look that Pallas had never seen on him in the short time he had had the honor of being in his close presence. His king was handsome, his features always etched in warmth and kindness, though above all he held himself with a certain poise and regality that was quite unlike the way he was murmuring around a crooked grin, whatever it was that he was saying being enough to cause the prince’s cheeks to color like the blossoms framing them both.

Pallas looked elsewhere, turning his body away like a wall. It was improper for him to be watching, an intrusion that was beneath him and that he was already regretting. He continued his stride around the grounds, retaking his usual position of crossed wrists and a raised head, clearing his throat with a mouthful of air. As he followed the sounds of the soldiers from the barracks, he tried not to think of the last time he had seen a look similar to the one he just witnessed, and what Damianos slowly being able to leave his rooms meant.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I FINALLY MANAGED TO WRITE MORE  
> this was initially intended to just be a one shot and not split into a chaptered fic, but my inspiration with it is so staggering that I have no idea how long it will take to go up if I wait for it all to be completed, so this is what we got. the next part should hopefully be the last.

Lazar waited for the final person to clear out of the pathway, the toe of his boot tapping against the bark of the tree behind him as he observed his surroundings. He wasn’t sure of the hour, all he knew was that it was late enough for most of the soldiers to be gone for the night, retiring to wherever they chose to sleep. He caught sight of Jord by the entrance to the barracks, lifting his hand with a twist and a questioning shake of his head as if to say _are you coming?_

Lazar shook his head, nudging it to the side so he wouldn’t wait for him. He heard the twigs snap under his shoe, watching as Jord retreated inside before he pushed off and away, making his way forward. 

The tent was familiar to him. Small without feeling overstuffed, humble in its interior. Lazar had been inside the prince’s tent on the road, this was nothing like those streaming flags, the embroidery stitched into the bedrolls or the table laden with platters of food and drink. It was simple, much like the man sitting on the rumple of blankets, looking up when Lazar entered. 

He was dragging a whetstone across a blade, stopping only when the flap fell back into place. He sat silently, watching Lazar move around like _he_ was the one that had entered someone else’s tent and only just realized it.

“What?” Lazar said. He leaned a hip against the single table, trying to recall if there was somewhere else he was meant to be, somewhere he had said he would be. He came up with nothing, but couldn’t think of why Pallas was looking like the directions he was given on a map told him to go through a river.

“Are you-“ Pallas looked around. “Did something happen?”

Lazar’s heel was poised against the ground, a moment away from pushing his boot off. “Such as?”

“I,“ Pallas set his things down. “You’re- here?”

Lazar nodded, unsure why he phrased that like a question. “Seems like it.”

When Pallas did nothing but continue to observe him, Lazar shifted his feet. “What is it?” 

“You haven’t come in a few days,” Pallas said, like that was an explanation for his perplexed behavior. 

“Yes,” Lazar said, slowly. “I had to guard in the palace, and I was needed in the barracks. And then there was-“ he stopped, waving his hand down. “Why does it matter that I was busy?”

Pallas was still sitting on the ground, looking up at Lazar while they spoke. It felt odd to be in this sort of position when nothing particularly exciting was happening, not to mention he fact that he still wasn’t quite sure what it was they were talking about.

“You were busy,” Pallas said, differently, like he was no longer speaking to Lazar. 

“Yes,” Lazar said. He felt s sliver of annoyance, and deliberately pushed it away. This entire prelude felt rather pointless, and the fact of them going in circles over what seemed to be noting only heightened it, but Pallas wasn’t one to be intentionally obtuse, that was too Veretian for him. Whatever this was, there was a reason for it.

“I thought,” Pallas motioned between them. He stood up, closing the few paces that separated them. “I may have angered you.”

The words fell between them, weighing on Lazar’s mind like a stake hammered into a tent. He sifted through his memories as he waited for them to penetrate, tilting his head back when they did. “Ah.”

Angered was a strong word. He remembered how Pallas had acted, what his words had insinuated. It had rankled Lazar at best, a spark of animosity that was still strong enough to derive distance, a walk in the dark night where he could clear his head and put things into perspective. 

The thing was, Lazar didn’t care. Not really. Lazar was who he was, and that was most definitely not something he was ever going to apologize for. He had gotten himself this far on his own, and it was certainly not the first time someone had assumed otherwise, assumed less of how he presented himself. Or maybe, exactly how he presented himself.

“No,” Lazar said, stepping forward. “You didn’t anger me.”

“And it’s not about,” Pallas rubbed at his jaw. “What I told you?”

At the rise of Lazar’s brows, he dropped his hand to his side. It had a boyish nature to it. “My future.”

Admittedly, Lazar thought it was a little endearing when Pallas spoke Veretian with him. He got certain tenses wrong, and at times his pronunciations were a bit off. Lazar never told him, though. Aside for the fact that it was a stupid thought to entertain even to himself, he liked the occasional reminder that Pallas wasn’t as impeccable as he seemed, as polished. 

“I don’t care who you are,” Lazar said, reaching for the pin by his shoulder. “And I don’t care that you’re getting married.”

Pallas watched as the material of his chiton fell to his waist before lifting his eyes. “And I don’t care who _you_ are.”

And that was it. It wasn’t like they were courting, or like either one of them meant something special to the other. It didn’t matter to Lazar how Pallas viewed him, because Pallas was going to end up like everyone else. People had always entered and left Lazar’s life like brief encounters were all they needed from him, and he was just fine with that. He didn’t need anything more, especially not from someone who was betrothed to another.

“Good,” Lazar said, before pushing Pallas against a tent poll. He didn’t mention that there was nothing about him to care about, nothing more than what was already on the surface. He wasn’t some maiden, priming herself to impress a few highborn parents. He was just another soldier bedding a beautiful man. One day Pallas was going to care, was going to be with someone who he was forced to care about, and that was just fine with Lazar.

One day, Pallas would have more. Until then, they had this.

 

The mechanisms ran through Lazar’s head routinely, as thoughtless as getting dressed in the morning. Stance upright with his feet shoulder apart, grip relaxed on the bow handle. Load the arrow, perfect the placement. Position the fingers. 

Draw, aim. 

Release.

“You haven’t missed once,” Pallas said, the end of the arrow quivering around his words. Lazar looked over to where he was sitting, his back on a tree as he stretched his legs out before him and bit into an apple.

“No,” Lazar said.

“You have excellent aim,” Pallas continued. “And you don’t even seem to think about it. Have you trained somewhere?”

Lazar rubbed at his neck, squinting the sun out of his eyes. It was too hot in Akielos, too bright all the time. “Not quite.”

“You won archery in the games the king held,” Pallas said. He was rolling the apple between his palms, the single bite a stark white against the green peal. “You’re very good.”

Lazar shrugged. He _was_ good at archery, he didn’t see any reason to treat it like some revealed secret.

Pallas frowned. It made a crease appear between his dark brows, which always made Lazar smile.

“What?” Lazar said, ignoring the remaining arrows in the bundle he had collected and leaning his shoulder on the tree Pallas was sitting against. He looked down as he spoke, wonderfully used to speaking to him in this position.

Pallas shrugged as well. He was young, the petulance of if fit him, despite how much older he tended to carry himself. “Your response to everything is so…” He waved a hand around. “Nonchalant.”

Lazar pursed his lips. “Big word,” he said, certain he never would have understood it in Akielon.

Pallas looked back to the target. Lazar reached for his apple, taking a bite out of the middle before rolling it between his fingers, watching Pallas pretend not to look at him from the corner of hid eye as he chewed. He tended to watch Lazar when they were together, to look at him as if there was a conversation going on that he wasn’t privy to.

He wiped his mouth off with the back of his hand. “Did you ask me a question?”

“I don’t know,” Pallas said. “I’m just trying to have a conversation.”

It was Lazar’s turn to frown. They had conversations. They were usually leading to something, or concluding it, but it wasn’t as if they never spoke. He took another sour bite before handing the fruit back to Pallas, crossing his arms against his the stiff material of his jacket. He looked around, feeling the puff of air leave his throat as he leaned his back against the bark and slipped down.

“I had a lot of energy when I was a boy,” Lazar said, pushing the heal of his hand into his eye. “To keep me occupied, my mother would mark a spot on a tree and see how many times I could hit it in a row with pebbles.”

Pallas’ features were poised like he was trying to translate the words in his head, going over each vowel and syllable carefully, which didn’t make much sense. He’d responded to much longer winded sentences far quicker before. 

In the end, all he said was, “pebbles?” 

“Only initially,” Lazar said, trying not to feel foolish for talking about this. “I knew where she kept her dagger.”

Two men walked together across the other end of the yard, each of them holding the opposite end of a large stack of spears, facing each other as they moved. Pallas watched them as he said, “How did she know it was working?”

“I wasn’t constantly running between her legs,” Lazar said. If he was a more maudlin person or some pet trying to play into a potential master’s whimsical sentiment, he would go on about how he could still smell the cookies she used to bake him. “She knew.”

He didn’t know what caused Pallas’ lips to curl up, but he liked it. “So you practiced enough with your mother that your aim is still so precise?”

“Maybe,” he replied, not having given it much thought. Some habits just stuck. How to hold a sword. How to suck cock. It wasn’t such a complex concept.

Pallas touched a finger to the starburst Lazar wore on his sleeve, carefully threaded embroidery that wrapped around his bicep in a pattern of shifting gold.

”I’ve seen a dagger amongst your things,” he said. His eyes followed the path that his thumb made.

“It’s a good dagger,” Lazar said, pushing himself up and wiping the grass off his palms. “Small, easy to hide.”

He watched as Pallas’ jaw worked, his tongue tracing his bottom lip like it always did when he was preparing himself for something. He had seen it in the privacy of a tent, in a circle of sawdust, in the middle of an armoury. When his lips parted, Lazar offered him a hand.

“Get up,” Lazar said. “I want to spar.”

Pallas met his eyes as he took his hand, like he could feel Lazar’s stomach unwinding. He allowed himself to be pulled up, dusting his own hands off.

They sparred.

 

“Tighten your grip,” Lazar said.

He said it into the curve of Pallas’s neck, damp and salt tinged on his tongue as he buried his face in deeper. He felt the way his fingers curled in, one around his neck and one against the edge of his shoulder, his lips parting in a muffled groan at the feeling of nails biting into his skin.

He moved his own hands further down, palms smoothing around the swells of Pallas’ ass. The skin there was tight and firm, and moved with Lazar easily as he pulled him in closer, a nonstop shift of both of their hips that pushed his cock deeper in.

Lazar kept one hand against the small of his back, fingers spanned wide so he could feel each strain and pull of muscle, the other trailing inwards so he could trace the edge of his rim, could feel the spot where Lazar was stretching him open with each upward thrust inside. Pallas was hot, responsive, almost as vigorous with receiving it as he had been when he’d fucked Lazar earlier that day, on his knees with his fingers bruising into his hips.

Pallas spread his thighs a little more, causing a shift that sunk Lazar in deeper, his hold tightening reflexively. The sound Pallas made was guileless, far too loud for the small confines of their tent or the camp that held an array of men that would surely hear them, and Lazar fucking loved it.

Lazar had never cared much about people knowing who he bedded, nor did he shy away from discussing it. It was never something he was private about or hid, but he’d also never felt the need to brag or parade his affairs around. This sudden primalness, this proprietary need for everyone to know who he was with shocked even him. He wanted Pallas to leave marks on him, for people to see a change in the way Pallas carried himself after Lazar was finished with him.

Pallas’ legs were on either side of him, his knees digging into the ground as he rolled his hips, fucking himself on Lazar’s cock like he’d been thinking about it all day and was finally getting what he’d waited for. He had a line of sweat running down the side of his neck, one that Lazar followed with his tongue, his earlobe soft between his teeth.

“You feel-“ Lazar’s breath stuttered, his mouth gong slack when the hold on the back of his hair sharpened, a rush of air leaving him with the sting. “Fuck.”

His own grip had gone to Pallas’ waist, the muscles in his biceps straining as he worked to move him quicker, up and down, driving into a hot friction that felt heaven, if such a thing existed. 

“ _There_ ,” Pallas said in Akielon, his rough voice a wrung out version of itself that made Lazar want to push him onto his back and take him like that with his legs in the air. “ _Like that_.” 

He was always so eager, always able to take exactly what Lazar gave him, a perfect match for him. His voice grew louder in Lazar’s ear with each thrust inside, the stuttered sound of his groans rivaling the sound their bodies made each time they joined together. 

“Again,” Pallas said, holding onto Lazar’s shoulders like he was attempting to break through his skin and bones with his fingers. 

Lazar couldn’t stop touching him, couldn’t stop from sliding his hands across his skin, feeling the way the muscles in his back contracted as he arched against him, a constant gyrating that had them both panting. It was Pallas’ face now that was pressed into Lazar’s neck, hot breathes that Lazar felt tantalize him further as he caressed his thighs, feeling them flex under his touch. 

“You’re so good,” Lazar said, brushing his hair aside so he could speak into his ear, wanting him to feel each outline of his lips. He angled his body up differently, pressing into him in the way that he knew Pallas was waiting for, wanting to show him just how good he thought he was.

Their chests touched with each joining, Pallas’ nipples two hardened points, brushing against him. His voice was broken in Lazar’s ear, _yes_ , barely audible form the way he was biting into Lazar’s skin, hoarse. _Harder_.

“Don’t come,” Lazar said, bringing his hands back down to Pallas’ sides and feeling him tremble. He tried to speak, only managing a sound that was a cross between a whine and a grunt when Lazar gripped his cock.

“Don’t,” he repeated, releasing him so he could return his hands to their place at his hips. “I want you to finish in my mouth.”

Pallas groaned, but the drawn out sound was cut off, turning jagged with hitched breathes when Lazar tightened his clutch on him, not allowing him any leverage to move so he was holding him in place, fucking into him at his own pleasure. 

He didn’t know how long passed like that, Pallas’ moans and aborted attempts at moving with him all blurring together in his mind as his teeth dug deeper into his lip, so sharp that he thought he might taste blood. It was impossibly good, the friction of his cock driving into Pallas’ body and the wanton sounds he made addictive, the notion alone of who this was in his lap, legs shamelessly wrapped around him making him feel like a king.

“ _Lazar_ ,” Pallas said, his name leaving in a breath on one particularly hard thrust, and Lazar was coming harder than he could remember in a long time.

Things felt hazy after that, nearly every instinct in his body wanting him to collapse in a heap and allow himself the lassitude of climax, the sweet rush in his veins that he felt every time he got off with someone so pleasurable. The only instinct that was stronger, however, was the one that wanted to make Pallas feel just as good.

He pushed Pallas onto his back and arranged himself above him, allowing himself the indulgence of pressing a finger in and feeling where he’d just been, where he already wanted to be again. He was loose, his own spend leaking out and down his thigh, and Pallas made a low, rough sound as his body twitched from the idle probing.

“Please,” Pallas said, throaty, and Lazar allowed him another indulgence of catching his eye before dipping his head and taking him entirely in his mouth.

He was even louder now that he had been with Lazar inside him, if such a thing was even possible. His hands immediately found Lazar’s hair, thrusting into his mouth and ignoring the small sounds Lazar made around him, helpless, running a hand to the nape of his neck and curling his fingers in, tugging hard.

He didn’t last long, only managing a few minutes before his body was shuddering, spilling down Lazar’s throat with small jerks of his hips that Lazar felt under his palms, even as he held him down. Lazar swallowed everything he gave him, hoping that everyone passing had heard the way Lazar’s name sounded on Pallas’ tongue.

When it was over his arms finally gave out, boneless, not even managing to shift his body aside so that his face ended up pressed into Pallas’ open thigh, the few inches of wiggle room to the spot on the bedroll seeming like too much effort. Pallas’ hands were still on the back of his head, splayed out on his shoulder blades like the thought of pulling them away was too tiring for him as well.

“I don’t think I can move,” Lazar muttered into his skin. He was warm, sated, the thought of the cold walk to his own tent on the other end of the courtyard seeming torturous. He couldn’t think of anywhere else more comfortable that in this tent, his body sprawled here with Pallas tracing shapes on his skin.

“Then don’t,” Pallas said, still in Akielon. 

Lazar closed his eyes.

 

Lazar had never been inside a palace before. 

He’d been to the northern capital, but he’d never had reason to be in the palace. Even when he’d been one of the late Regent’s men, it had only been as a mercenary. By the time he had begun to fight under the rightful king of Vere, they had been long out of Arles.

He didn’t have much to compare the palace in Ios to, but it was clear enough from the architecture that this place was nothing like Vere. The simple coloring alone, the nonexistent pattering and the open air around him was so basic, it felt incongruent to be standing inside as a Veretian. Even his livery, the stark blue and the dark boots made Lazar feel like he was clashing.

He didn’t know how long he had been standing in his post outside Damen’s sickroom, one hour blending into the next with nothing to entertain himself but his thoughts. He watched as Akielons walked around him, all those arms and thighs shamelessly on display in that blessed scrap of fabric they called clothing, and it didn’t take much more for his mind to rear back to a where it seemed to go these days, more often than not.

It didn’t surprise Lazar that he kept thinking about the same person, that was happening too frequently to still come as a shock. What surprised him was that rather think of legs, a mouth, anything useful, really, he was thinking of eyes. Hands, in the least exciting way. A low, deep rumble of laughter. 

The door behind Lazar’s back opened, prompting him to stand up straighter and stop staring into nothing with spiraling thoughts like a young virgin. He looked ahead, not letting his eyes linger on anything in particular as the prince came forward with the physician. 

“He is healing well,” Paschal said, in a tone that said his comment had been a response. “He hasn’t developed new aches, the stitches haven’t been pulled, and his limp is diminishing. I am satisfied.”

The prince barely nodded. He watched Paschal unflinchingly, looking back at him like he was waiting for more before lifting a few fingers. ”Recovery,” he said. “I would like an estimate.”

“I couldn’t quite say,” Paschal replied. “But it is nearing.” He was looking at the prince similarly. 

He said nothing to that. Lazar said nothing, his own thoughts now sparking, not that it was his place to speak. He pushed all of that down, turning his focus to what was present, only to see that the physician had left. He and the prince were alone.

“Your highness,” Lazar greeted.

A few seconds passed before he lifted his eyes, looking at Lazar. He was dressed even more pristine than Lazar was in his uniform, his laces tighter, more binding. Lazar tried to imagine the fact of Damen undoing them, the prince _allowing_ him to, and then he had to bite back a grin. 

“Lazar.”

“How is the king?” he asked. He watched a muscle in the prince’s jaw clench, his eyes moving to the door.

“Recovering,” he answered. He brought a finger to his temple and rubbed, a young characteristic that he’d seen Pallas display as well, despite the way one would never guess either of their ages from the way they held themselves. “But not as quickly as he thinks.”

It was far more of an answer than Lazar had expected, but it sounded just about right to him. He remembered Damen leading them at the ambush in Nesson, after having been gone with the prince for an entire night. He remembered the battle at Hellay, right before he’d taken Ravenel for the prince with a swift ease like he’d just come out of a week of respite.

He had a number of responses he could offer, but neither of them seemed too appropriate for the conversation, or the company. He simply made a humming sound, reminding himself that talking about the prince around the fire with a group of ribald soldiers was not quite the same as talking _to_ him.

He eyed the prince and thought of Damen, of the man that he had gotten to know and had had the opportunity to absorb in close proximity for weeks, before his identity became known. He remembered Damen’s constant insistence that they were not fucking, the very concept having been so obvious to anyone who looked at them that the denial had bordered on insulting.

“You must be eager to return to Vere,” he eventually said, because the prince was still there and he wasn’t sure if he was meant to remain silent.

He heard the chipper of birds, the tall columns and open porticos that led out a view to the backdrop of water making it seem like they were outside, rather amidst marble and stone. Lazar was aware of the gap of stillness, waiting.

But the prince remained wordless. Perhaps he hadn’t heard him, perhaps he chose to ignore him; but his silence was a heavy cloak nonetheless, all reactions suddenly stripped from his face.

As he walked away, Lazar thought he might understand.

 

The next time Lazar entered Pallas’ tent, he had another letter in his hands.

He could tell that Pallas hadn’t heard him enter. He tended to be rather blasé when Lazar entered his personal space, often not even greeting him like the two of them ending the day together was to be expected (it was, he was not obtuse enough to pretend otherwise), but that easygoingness didn’t generally apply when he was reading a letter from his home. He tended to have an odd aura about himself when such a thing came up, like he was being told the same story a second time and had to pretend like his reactions were genuine.

He was loud in kicking his shoes off, just a pitch louder than the sound of the papers crinkling in Pallas’ hands as he lifted his head.

“Oh,” Pallas said, folding them over a second time. “I didn’t- you’re here.”

Lazar bent down to lift his boots off the ground, picking them both up by the tops in the same hand. Close enough in proximity, he pressed a kiss to the arch of Pallas’ cheekbone to see the reaction it would garter, but it was his own stomach that tightened in reflex to the spontaneous act.

He looked to the bedroll, seeing that it was unmade as if he had just come out of sleep. The thin pillow was tossed aside, the blanket crumpled in a discarded roll.

“What are you reading?” Lazar asked. His jacket came off, dropping by the blanket as he took his spot on the ground.

Pallas removed his fingers from his cheek, touching the corner of the papers with the pad of his thumb like he was wiping a smear of ink away. “You know what.”

He knew what. The thing they didn’t talk about. The thing they – or at least, Lazar – didn’t think about.

This wasn’t what he had come here to discuss. He hadn’t come here to discuss anything, really. The tent was warm, and they had a few hours until they needed to be of any use anyone but each other. Pallas was _right there_ , and Lazar knew where he kept his oils.

Lazar pulled a knee to his chest, letting his weight rest forward with his arms crossed. “How are they?”

Pallas’ lashes always looked longer when he blinked at Lazar, those few rapid flutters that meant he was startled. Lazar waited. 

“My parents?”

“Did you mention anyone else?” Lazar asked. 

Pallas’ eyes swept across the arrangement of Lazar’s arms and legs, his slumped posture, nothing particularly amorous about it. They were still moving when he said, “the same.”

“That doesn’t say much,” Lazar noted. “Being that I don’t have much experience with aristocratic parents.”

It was the wrong thing to say. He didn’t know why, but the set of Pallas’ mouth told him as much. Lazar wasn’t exactly the kind of person who put much thought behind his words, but it seemed to be a night of firsts because he was adding, against his better judgment, “tell me about them.”

“Why?” Pallas said, somehow making it both a question and a statement.

“Why-“ Lazar felt the frustration rise, and he made himself push it down before continuing. “Do you question everything I say?”

“I’m not the one asking questions,” Pallas replied. 

“Fuck,” Lazar said, missing the days he didn’t care about stupid things, like conversation before sex. “Forget I asked.”

Pallas pushed the letter behind him, sliding it aimlessly into one of the folds of the bundle of clothing he was compiling by his bedroll. His neutral expression was even more irritating, because it just made Lazar feel petulant for being the only affected one. He laid himself down on his back, feeling it safe to assume that the cloth ceiling wouldn’t compel him to say anything else incriminating. 

The camp was surprisingly quiet that night, silent enough that Lazar could hear the sound of insects buzzing outside, of someone sheathing a sword, of Pallas stretching out on his back beside him.

Lazar turned his head, Pallas’ already turned to him. His thumbs were touching on his stomach.

“They are perfect,” Pallas said. And immediately after, “they are very flawed.”

“No one is perfect,” Lazar said. He wasn’t speaking out of sentiment, just realism. 

“No,” Pallas agreed. “But it’s easy to pretend.”

Lazar shook his head, slowly.

Pallas was silent for a moment before lowering his head a bit, bringing his chin closer to his own shoulder. “Would you go into battle with a wooden sword?” Pallas asked. “Even if it was carved for a king.”

“No,” Lazar said. He had basic sparring comprehension. 

Pallas was silent again, doing nothing but watching Lazar as if that was explanation.

He supposed, after more thought, that it was.

He wanted to ask more, and didn’t know why. He wanted a different answer, and couldn’t think about why.

Instead, all he gave was, “okay.”

“Okay,” Pallas repeated, smiling like that amused him. Lazar knew nothing good would come of smiling back, so he returned his gaze to the crossings of silks and rods above them. 

“Do you still keep contact?” Pallas asked, like he was continuing a previous conversation. His legs were bare, Lazar could feel the length of one pressed against his own.

“Who?”

“You,” Pallas said. “Your mother.”

“Mm.” Lazar rubbed at a sore muscle in his jaw. “No.”

He didn’t hesitate this time. “Why?”

“I don’t know.” The ache did not let up. He pressed harder. “Veretians don’t believe in an afterlife.” 

The crickets seemed to be louder, suddenly. It was like they had jumped down his throat and were lodging between his ribcage, causing a pulse with each buzz. 

“Oh,” Pallas said, significantly quieter than the crickets weighing him down.

Lazar closed his eyes, because looking away wasn’t always enough. He didn’t want to think about letters, about disparities that were chasms, about how quickly a village could turn to ashes.

A hand covered his.

“No more talking,” Pallas said.

Lazar exhaled.

 

It was midday when Jord came to him.

Jord was a good man. He was a little bit tedious for Lazar’s taste, but he was pragmatic, able, and loyal. Also, Lazar’s tastes were much more narrow than they used to be.

Lazar was seated on a log after a particularly grueling session of drills, the kind that left him feelings like he was constantly balancing weights on his arms, hours after he had left the field. He was wiping the back of his hand across his forehead, his knuckles coming back slick when Jord took the spot across from him.

“The men are improving,” Jord said. He shifted his thighs against the uneven surface, leaning forward on his forearms. 

“They better be,” Lazar said.

“They’re working better together,” Jord added, nudging his head to the side like Lazar didn’t know where they had just come from. “Like Nesson.”

Lazar took the flask out of Jord’s hands as a response, taking two long slugs of water before handing it back to him. He watched a group of men stack blades into a barrel as Jord watched him.

“Are you going to speak,” Lazar said. “Or just stare at me.”

“I’m just looking.”

“You’re not my type,” Lazar replied, turning back to him. And then he saw the quality of Jord’s gaze, and his amusement slipped away like a fallen banner, cloth gliding down the walls of a fortress. 

“Damianos oversaw some of today’s training,” Jord said, setting the flask down between them.

“Damen is very difficult to miss,” Lazar said.

“I’ve guarded his sickroom,” Jord continued. “The prince is very strict with him.”

“I know,” Lazar said. “I still can’t figure out who gets a leg over.”

For a Veretian, Jord was very bad at hiding his expressions. He saw frustration the instant it appeared, and did nothing to expel it.

“I’m speaking to you as a friend,” he said.

“Then speak,” Lazar said. The urge to get up, to leave, was strong. “I’ve yet to hear anything substantial.” 

“He is an aristocrat,” Jord said, plainly. “And no one can change where a person came from.”

Reaction hit hard, both to the notion of someone else putting Lazar’s situation in his face like it was theirs to maneuver, and to the idea of someone else thinking they knew anything about either of them.

“You would certainly know about that,” Lazar said. 

Rapid and sharp, he saw as whatever reaction he had personally felt was reflected back to him, and Lazar had to look away. Personal discrepancies aside, it was a foul thing to say.

Jord said nothing else for a few minutes, but the reprieve from speaking did nothing to unclench the grip Lazar felt around his neck. He focused on the grass beneath his feet, bright green and long. Even that would be different back in Vere.

“I wasn’t trying to overstep,” Jord said, when Lazar didn’t look up. “I was only-“ 

But he didn’t finish, and he didn’t have to.

“I know,” Lazar said.

Jord added nothing more. He nodded once, twice, his palm falling to his knee before he rose, taking his leave. Lazar remained where he was, the hunch of his body unmoving, eyes not straying form Jord’s retreating back.

 _I know_ , Lazar wanted to say, and wouldn’t. _That he will never choose me._


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I FINALLY FINISHED THIS FIC.  
> i hadn't touched the document in months and then i opened it on a whim a few weeks ago and was literally kicked in the face with the memory of how much i adore pallas and lazar so HERE WE GO.

The tent was like a cocoon that evening, lanterns lit and pleasantly warm. Any outside noises were muted from the thick flaps, the rest of the world feeling far away.

“Did you go back often?” Pallas asked. He angled the way his hands were cupped, pressing the heels in.

He waited for some response, and was instead rewarded with the low, drawn-out sound of Lazar moaning into the crook of his elbow, muffled from the way his face was hidden. Pallas tilted his head back, savoring the opportunity to close his eyes and revel in it, in the small things he was given that no one else was able to experience.

“Well?” Pallas said, digging his thumbs in circles. The expanse of Lazar’s back was smooth and toned, beautifully tarnished with faint red lines and crescent shaped indentations. He felt that same flair or possessiveness rush through him, and he did nothing to subdue it. He could have this, while there was still time.

“We went back most nights,” Lazar said, turning his head so his cheek was resting on the pillow, his voice a bit easier to make out. His eyelids remained hooded as Pallas moved his hands back and forth, rubbing tense muscle. “The girl from the kitchen gave us a spare key. We knew where they kept the wine.”

“How did you manage that?” Pallas adjusted his hips, moving down Lazar’s body enough that he could position his hands differently. “Were you fucking her?”

He could just make out the edge of Lazar’s lips turning up. His heart twisted. “No,” he mumbled. “She was after my friend.”

The idea was ludicrous to Pallas. He’d seen Lazar dazzle a handful of different people in the weeks following their recapture of Ios, from soldiers to washerwomen to servants, averting their eyes or flushing from his easy grin or his lazy charm. He couldn’t picture meeting anyone that wouldn’t be enthralled by Lazar.

“André?” Pallas asked. His slick fingers made easy shapes on Lazar’s back.

“Raoul,” Lazar said. His eyes were properly closed. “André exclusively preferred men.” 

Pallas heard the suggestive tone in Lazar’s voice, and he enjoyed that almost as much as their conversations. He had become increasingly eager for them, and was slowly learning how to coax them out of Lazar in small, elusive ways that wouldn’t overwhelm him, or make him retreat into himself. Pallas himself wasn’t always so eager to discuss his home life, his complicated relationship with his family or the path they had set for him, but it wasn’t quite like extracting venom from a wound, the way it could be with Lazar. Pallas was also learning that the best times to get him talking were when he was relaxed, sleepy, or laying beside him after sex. 

His arms were folded under his face, the position of it setting off his broad shoulders and the tight muscles in his back, all there for Pallas to touch. “Did he,” he said, gliding his palms up either side of his spine. 

Lazar groaned. His mouth was open, and Pallas couldn’t look away. “Harder.”

Heat crept through Pallas’ stomach. There were times he wanted to tear into Lazar like an unrestrained animal, all teeth and flesh. 

“I know,” Pallas said, leaning closer. “I remember.”

He made that sound again, the one that made Pallas want to drop to his knees, or to push Lazar down onto his. Pallas’ hair was shorter than Lazar’s. It wasn’t as easy for him to card his fingers through it in fists when Pallas took him in his mouth, but it didn’t stop him from trying.

Chest heaving, Pallas shifted off of Lazar, lifting his leg off of his hips and pivoting. Lazar began to stir, eyes opening in a flutter when Pallas brought a hand under his side, pushing him onto his back.

“What-“ Lazar said, lifting himself on an elbow as he watched Pallas readjust himself over him, this time moving lower. He didn’t finish his sentence, but Pallas could still hear the sound of his elbow giving out when he dipped his own head down.

 

When Pallas had been a boy, he had become obsessed with a waterside in the town he had grown up in. It was a short distance form his home, easily covered on foot, and he had gone so frequently that he could make the trek with only giving it a fraction of his attention. There were a number of things he liked about the location; the inviting stretch of water, the vast silence where he could spar with his friends or tackle each other into the sand. There were different sized rocks he liked to climb, and parts that extended into the water where he could step to the edge and trail the tips of his toes in, different colored fish swimming by.

One day, Pallas had gone to the coast alone. His parents had been arguing with his sister, Pallas couldn’t remember about what but it had been a matter that he’d heard about enough and needed a reprieve from. He’d walked along the shore, matching his stride with the footmarks as sand stuck to his wet feet. He threw pebbles in, watched the sun set, and then walked some more. It had been that meaningless wandering that brought him to them.

Pallas knew the man – Demetrius - relatively well. He was his brother’s age, and their parents were well acquainted, their fathers occasionally hunting together. Pallas had been to his estate with his own family for multiple dinner parties, the meals their servants and cooks had prepared never repeating. Pallas had seen his entire home multiple times over, and had eagerly accepted the invitation to tour his armory and try out whatever weapon caught his eye, despite only just recently beginning his own training. 

Their entire families would be present for these evenings, including his uncle who was a Lord from Mellos. Pallas had even been introduced to Demetrius’ lady, smiling politely with his siblings at his side. She was short, heavily jeweled, and not the woman who Demetrius was facing by the water. 

Pallas recognized her. He didn’t know her name, but he’d seen her around the marketplaces which he sometimes frequented, despite his mother’s insistence on sending a servant instead. She sold silks in a small booth with two older women who looked like her, the same dark hair and large eyes. She was delicate looking, and tended to flush through her smiles when people dropped extra coin into the tin cup they kept on their table. Her cheeks were just as colored that day, her eyes closing as Demetrius’ traced her knuckles with his fingers. Pallas had never seen him touch his lady like that, even when he caught sight of them alone in his home.

It had confused Pallas at the time. Even in his adolescence he had understood who they were, the roles that they all played. He had a perfectly good woman at his side, she was vivacious and bold and most importantly, his family glowed when they saw them together. Pallas couldn’t figure out why Demetrius would complicate that with a secret dalliance that he knew, realistically, wouldn’t last.

Now, with his back against a wall as he stood alone and watched Lazar shove his shoulder into the one next to him, the light of the fire amplifying the way he looked as his head fell back with laughter, he thought he understood. 

It was becoming too much for him at times. The morning before he had woken up to Lazar’s bare back as he slept in wrecked exhaustion, and a part of him wanted to leave so he could be spared the taunting sight of how gentle he looked when he woke up, before the bravado and filthy language would kick back in. Every time Lazar left his tent, Pallas could only wonder when it would finally be the last time.

Pallas turned, facing a different part of the yard as he listened to the sounds of work, crates stacking and men whistling. He needed – he pushed his hands into his eyes, the breath leaving him in a rush. He wanted to splash his face with cold water, or to pummel someone into the ground. He had never felt so helpless.

He needed the Veretians to go. He needed Damianos to heal so the Prince could leave, could take his men with him and give Pallas some relief. He wasn’t skilled with this, with _any_ of it. Pulling out a blade could be what allowed the rapid blood flow to kill you, but it was better than keeping it in when you knew your end was near. Pallas had always believed that, had always believed in facing his pain head on.

There was nothing head on about this. Pallas had turned, unwittingly, and was once again watching the way Lazar moved his hands as he spoke, rubbing at his stubble or leaning his weight forward on his wrists. The only thing Pallas wanted to do was to join him, and he knew that it was the last thing that he should do. The chasm between them felt larger than ever.

Lazar was watching him. Pallas wasn’t sure for how long, only that he had lifted his head and like that, their gazes were locked. He saw the question flicker behind his eyes, the way his hands moved to his sides like he was waiting for Pallas’ directive before pushing himself up. Yearning pulsed throughout him, desperation clawing inside Pallas’ chest as he felt every instinct scream at him to nod, to join him, to take Lazar’s hand and pull him away from everything.

Pallas lowered his head. His legs felt numb as they took him to his tent, the sound of the flap closing behind him dull.

It was a very long night.

 

Pallas’ tenacity could only last for so long.

He seemed to vacillate between two different extremes those days, two different resolves that controlled his actions. It was either distance; aching, unbearable distance that Lazar seemed to take in stride, or they were inseparable. It varied from the continuity of sleeping in each other’s tents to dragging Lazar into seclusion and having him with a visceral kind of desperation that made him question who he was, who he would soon be when he was left alone. 

Each day was like the toss of a coin, the question of which side would win out, the pull between what Pallas wanted and what he had been raised to believe he should want. That afternoon, hidden away in an unoccupied room in the palace with Lazar bent over for him, the winning side seemed rather absolute. 

Neither of them were on guard that day, their duties complete. Training had been fruitful, their blood was up, and Lazar was very persuasive when he wanted to be. It had only taken an assurance that the room was vacant, a flash of stowed away oil and an equally enticing flash of his most coy smile to have Pallas kicking the door shut before pushing Lazar against it.

Pallas didn’t know who the room belonged to, though whoever it was would likely not be too pleased with the state they would find their things in. Pallas had hardly paid the papers and various trinkets any mind when he’d laid on his back, his legs propped up as Lazar opened him with quick, unforgiving fingers. He savored the stretch, even the slight burn, and it wasn’t long before he was clambering back to his feet and rearranging them so he was behind Lazar, returning the favor. 

Lazar took cock beautifully. He was always just as agreeable in parting his thighs as he was to climbing on top of Pallas and pinning his wrists above his head. His feet were separated just enough for balance, his pants pushed down around his boots, and the careless, disheveled look of it drove Pallas more than if he had been properly undressed.

His hands were gripping the edge of the desk, white knuckled and unrelenting. Pallas’ own fingers were tight around his hips, his mind on the marks he would leave there as he drove into him again, and again. His face was pressed into the side of his neck, like getting close enough would allow him to taste the beat of Lazar’s pulse on his tongue. He wanted to remain there forever, to plant himself deep enough into Lazar’s memory that Pallas would always stay with him, even after Lazar moved on.

He saw as Lazar lifted a hand, bringing it between his own legs, and it did nothing to slow down the rhythm of Pallas’ thrusts as he reached around him and took Lazar’s wrist in his hand, pressing it back onto the table.

Lazar’s head fell back against his shoulder. “Let me,” he said. His eyelids were half open, he didn’t sound too disheartened with the interference. 

Pallas tightened the clasp around his bones, pressing his palm flat on the surface. He kicked one of Lazar’s legs aside with the edge of his foot, his arm wrapping around him in a secure hold as he began to fuck into him in hard, deliberate thrusts.

“No.” The word was bitten into his neck. 

Lazar was moving with him, his hips pushing back like he only wanted to take Pallas deeper, like there was no concern of a long day of drills ahead of him. He was panting. “Please,” he said. “I need-“

“You will,” Pallas promised, tugging at his bottom lip with his teeth when he felt Lazar clench around him. “When I’ve finished.” 

Lazar cursed in Veretian, a word Pallas didn’t recognize despite the slang Lazar was teaching him. He brought his hand to Lazar’s cock and gave him one long, firm stroke before releasing him, wrapping his arms around him like he hadn’t heard Lazar moan at the loss. He pressed their mouths together, muffling all of his sounds as he continued to fuck him in earnest.

When Pallas found his release it was inside Lazar, the two of them fallen down onto the top of the desk in gasping breathes, parchments drifting to the floor and a goblet knocked over, rolling in front of them. Pallas was murmuring things he couldn’t himself perceive into Lazar’s ear; unable to remember the last time he’d felt so complete.

He pulled out, slowly, Lazar remaining sprawled forward like he knew what Pallas wanted of him. Pallas kept one had on the small of his back, his other trailing down, prodding, feeling where he was now loose and stretched out. He pushed one finger inside, another. Lazar grunted, a rough sound that shot sparks through Pallas’ gut, making him shudder. He crooked his fingers, unable to look away as they came out wet with his own release. He watched, mesmerized as his cum dripped out of Lazar’s hole and down the backs of his thighs, and it was with a fervent amount of restraint that he stopped himself from falling to his knees and putting his mouth there.

He pressed his lips to the soft skin behind Lazar’s ear before rearing back, bringing a quick slap to the side of Lazar’s thigh. “Your turn.”

Lazar lifted himself, turning around so he was facing him, leaning against the spot where he had just been pushed down on and fucked against. His cock was hard, wet at the tip, and the only thing that stopped Pallas from taking him in his mouth was the way Lazar gripped his shoulders.

They were moving. Pallas’ back was hitting the wall before he had even registered their footsteps, Lazar’s hands sliding from his shoulders to his neck as he took his mouth with the same vigor Pallas had just taken him.

Lazar’s tongue was in his mouth, his hips grinding into Pallas’ abdomen. His thumbs pressed inwards, just enough pressure to make Pallas really feel it, his heart hammering against his chest from the blurring sensation. His arms were around Lazar, moving against his back and shoulders and arms, frantic. He couldn’t stop touching him. The grip tightened, and Pallas was gasping by the time Lazar pulled away.

“I should fuck you in the courtyard,” Lazar said, his fist closing around Pallas’ spent cock, ignoring the sound that left his throat. “In front of the men, so everyone can know that you’re mine.”

Pallas’ head was against the wall, his hands uselessly fallen at his sides. Lazar’s had circled around his body, his fingers moving inside where he had previously been stretched, not sparing a second for Pallas to adjust to the intrusion. He started with two, moving in and out of his rim in demanding presses, pleasure burning hot in his veins.

“Yes,” Pallas groaned, his fist hitting the wall when Lazar bit down on his clavicle, sucking down after. His heart was in his throat. “I want - yes.”

“On your knees,” Lazar continued. He still had one hand wrapped around his neck, the other pushed deep inside him, fingers curling in a way that made Pallas’ vision waver. “On the sawdust, where you knock everyone else down like it’s nothing.”

“Fuck me,” Pallas begged. His head was swimming, he could barely hear himself. “Lazar. Please.”

Pallas’s chest was pressed against the wall before he could say anything else, Lazar moving up against him so tightly that his face was turned to the side, the wall cool against his cheek. Lazar had brought his hands up to either side of him, setting them there with the sort of harsh finality that said _stay._

Pallas tried to swallow, and found that he couldn’t. He felt like he was floating, a collection of shaky limbs that was only being held together by the man behind him. His lips were parted, more open by the second, helpless moans filling the room as Lazar rubbed the head of his cock against his entrance. The louder he got, the slower Lazar circled around that spot, up and down in tantalizing presses that had Pallas pressing back, letting out a choked off sound when Lazar pushed him forward.

“Say it again.” He spoke low. Pallas never thought the tone of someone’s voice would be enough to tear him apart. Lazar’s hand smoothed down his hip, squeezing him. 

“What-“ Pallas said, dazed. He would say anything; he would do anything for him.

“My name,” Lazar said. His lips were grazing the shell of his ear, the pad of his thumb brushing his lips. “Say my name again.”

“Lazar,” Pallas said. His chest felt too tight, like all of the space was taken up by his feelings, consuming him. His hands were grappling against the wall, his own breathes hitting the marble in rasps as he felt the first press inside. _”Lazar.”_

“Again,” Lazar said, sinking in deeper. He had one hand on Pallas’ bicep, his other trailing the spot where he was splitting Pallas open. Pallas felt the trace of his finger.

“ _Lazar_.”

“Louder,” Lazar said. It came out gritted, like he was speaking through clenched teeth. He was moving inside him quickly, hard snaps of his hips that pushed Pallas onto his toes and kept his chest flat against the wall. His own cock – hard again - was pressed against his stomach. The surface was flat and cold against his body, his hardened nipples rubbing against the wall with each thrust. 

“Lazar,” Pallas gasped, his knees nearly buckling from the force of how he was driving into him. He would feel it for days; that was the only blissful thought that crossed Pallas’ mind as he pressed his forehead against the wall, feeling nothing but the bruises Lazar was pressing into him and the way he pounded their hips together. His name was a mantra; Pallas didn’t think he would ever be able to say anything else.

“Pallas,” he said against his neck, softly, and Pallas could have wept. There wasn’t enough air around them, not enough time in the world. He needed it to stop, everything that was keeping them apart. He needed this. He needed Lazar.

 

Pallas considered the options he held his hands, tracing the points of the crown with his thumb before glancing at the eyes of the men around him. Lydos seemed miffed, his thick brows pulled together as he switched two cards around. Rochert and Lazar seemed equally jaded, Rochert setting his pile down and leaning back on a hand as he turned to the next man in the rotation. Aktis would not stop looking around at everyone.

 _Don’t show any reaction._ It was the first thing Lazar had taught him when he’d initially explained the game to him, shuffling the deck with quick working hands. The name was the Veretian equivalent to the Akielon word horseshit, and it was apparently popular among the common folk in taverns and inns throughout the southern provinces of Vere. Pallas had never heard of it, but there were many things that he was slowly coming to learn.

“One four,” Jord said. He threw it down with a glance to the door.

“Three fives,” Aktis said. 

_Don’t oversell yourself._

“Horseshit,” Rochert said, throwing down two fives from his own hand.

Pallas looked around the room again as Aktis collected the cards, shuffling them into alignment. As everyone gave him a minute to arrange his considerably larger hand, Pallas thought of Lazar sitting cross-legged in front of him, ratty cards flashing between his fingers. “You’re teaching me Akielon,” he said, with the same aversion of eye contact that was always a sign that he was moments away from flushing. “I’m teaching you card games.”

Pallas had accepted the stack from him. “A language is practical.” 

“So are cards,” Lazar said. “What else do you do on campaign when there’s no more wine?”

“Fuck,” Pallas replied.

Lazar selected two more cards from the deck. He looked happy. 

“One six.” Huet leaned forward and dropped the card faced down.

It was Pallas’ turn. He had long ago counted ahead, and had been awaiting this moment where he would have to lie. He held two cards that he wouldn’t be responsible for, an eight and a Starburst. He touched a card with his finger. He would play it safe, would only use one. He would then be secure for a handful of turns.

The nudge against his thigh was light, almost imagined. Pallas didn’t lift his head when he felt it, though he allowed his eyes to drift towards the direction of the contact, just catching the slight, missable shake of Lazar’s head. He was cracking a pistachio into his mouth with one hand, tossing the shells into an overfilled bowl. 

“Pallas,” Jord prompted.

Pallas returned his attention to his cards. He had to act quick, knowing that any spared time would only further incriminate him. He moved his thumb to the Starburst, turning it over and dropping it on the table.

“One seven,” Pallas said, calm, like when he gave men orders. He looked at Jord as he spoke, and thought it was ridiculous that his heart was pounding, like a card game with a group of soldiers mattered this much. 

He felt like the seconds grew thick with anticipation, though in reality it was only a flash of time. No one seemed to give him any extra attention, and it was even more ridiculous how that brought a thrilling rush of air through him. Pallas should be patrolling, or recording the inventory, or at the very least in his tent resting for the new day of work ahead of him. Instead he was here, playing games. This wasn’t – Pallas was here because it was his life. The soldiers he came into contact with were meant to be his comrades at best. He wasn’t meant to be having _fun_ with them.

Lazar spit another shell out before leaning forward on an elbow, setting a small stack down. “Four eights.”

“Horseshit,” Lydos frowned.

Lazar shrugged, gesturing forward. Lydos turned the cards over, throwing his own pile down with a huff when he saw four multicolored eights looking up at him, shaking his head. “This game is fucked.”

“You Akielons just don’t know how to keep up,” Huet said. His elbow was propped up on the backrest of the chair beside him, wrist dangling. “I lied for every one of my turns.”

The Veretian captain Enguerran entered the room then, stilling in the doorway when he saw all the men seated around the table. He took in the cards, the depleting jug of wine, the bowls of nuts and olives. The side of his mouth turned down. “The Prince wants us up early for training.” 

“The Prince is frustrated because his lover is too sick to fuck,” Rochert said, sweeping the cards up in both hands. “He’s taking it out on us.”

Lazar kicked the chair across from him out, jutting his chin forward. “Sit. Play with us.”

Enguerran eyed the table again skeptically, but he still took the seat, rolling his shoulders back. “What are you playing for?”

“Pallas’ virtue,” Aktis said, clapping him on the shoulder. Pallas nudged his hand off, ignoring his own smile.

“Please.” Rochert drained his cup. “If he’s high moralled then I’m still a virgin.”

Lazar was being uncharacteristically quiet. Pallas waited for a joke about getting a leg over or the entire room’s lack of morality, but all he did was uncork a new bottle. The silver ring he wore on his thumb clinked against the glass as he poured. 

“We can make it interesting,” Lazar had said the night before, when he’d suggested they play with all the men. “Winner fucks the loser.”

“You said it can’t be played with just two people,” Pallas replied. “Are you suggesting we invite someone else into our tent?”

Lazar’s wrist moved quickly as he flicked the entire deck between the two of them, watching them fall in separate piles. “If you want to.” 

Pallas had hoped for some reaction, any indication on how he felt, but consistency was all that he got. Lazar seemed unperturbed as ever, and Pallas had been left to sit there and contemplate, to wonder if he was the only one of them that thought about the mindless things they said when they were inside each other, long after it was over.

He’d rolled a blade of grass between his fingers. “I don’t.”

Lazar looked up at him. It was the right thing to say.

Now, Lazar had an arm slung around Pallas’ chair, close enough that Pallas could feel the press of his boot against his ankle each time he shifted. They played three more games, long enough for Enguerran to loose his shrill demeanor and the Akielons to declare that they would be choosing the next form of entertainments. As everyone cleared out and returned to their designated spots to sleep, Pallas took Lazar’s hand in his and took him out to the direction of his tent, expecting another night where Lazar showed him all of the ways he’d long ago lost his virtue. 

But than night, it was different between them. Lazar couldn’t seem to stop kissing him, alternating between his neck and his face as he rocked inside him slowly. Pallas, who hadn’t been expecting it, could do nothing but tighten his legs around him and feel each individual thrust, his heart heavy. He was used to an exchange of power, a display of dominance, but Lazar was touching him like he thought Pallas would disappear if he held him too hard. Whatever it was that he was whispering into Pallas’ neck was too low for him to hear.

When they finished, Pallas felt like his chest was left in tattered scraps. He had to turn his head, knowing that if he looked into Lazar’s eyes he would give too much of himself away.

 

All things eventually reached their breaking point. 

It was something Pallas had learned at a young age. There was only so much weight a person could carry, so much impact a sword could withstand before it eventually shattered. Pallas didn’t know what it was, what exactly made him think he was the exception. Maybe it was Lazar’s confidence that made everyone else feel like they could absorb it, or the way he didn’t seem to care about what anyone else had to say about him. Maybe it was his most private laugh, loud and ungraceful. Maybe it was because Pallas had learned useless, stupid things, like how he preferred to sleep on his side with a hand tucked under his pillow, or how he enjoyed the floral scent of lavender.

Or maybe it was the bigger things, the parts of himself that he hid away just as adamantly as everything else, but allowed Pallas to see. He was good at archery because his mother had helped him practice his aim as a little boy. He still had his mother’s dagger hidden in his things. His mother was dead.

Even at the time, Pallas had known that those things meant something, that there was a certain truth to the two of them allowing the other to see their secrets. There had to be, because there was no other explanation as to why Pallas would have let him in, either. In his defense, he had believed that it would all amount to nothing. He’d had his fun in the past, and he’d thought that this was more of the same. Never in his first interactions with Lazar would he have guessed that he would make him feel vulnerable, frail when he was always strong. That he would let his guard down around him, or make Pallas feel limitless when his entire life was nothing but prettified bounds and restraints. 

It was his fault, really. He should have known from the first day that it was impossible to experience a slice of life with someone like Lazar and then willingly walk away from it. But the real truth was, knowing that wouldn’t have changed any of his choices. Pallas would take the pain of loosing Lazar a hundred times over if he meant he could experience the memories that he had. He knew that.

He also knew that he couldn’t be the one to let go. It had to be Lazar. 

 

It happened in the training yard, outside of the barracks. The irony of that being the same spot they had stood in when everything had begun did not go over Pallas’ head.

One week. It was what he had heard one of the Veretians tell another, an estimate of time before the Prince left Ios, taking his entire retinue with him. The words had struck him like ice water, and he had only settled himself with the reassurance that it could simply be a rumor. What did a common solider know about these matters? It hadn’t come from an office or the captain, just one man mentioning it like a throwaway comment as he sat on his bunk and pulled his jacket off for the day. 

But then, Pallas had seen the Veretian Prince. It was unintentional; a walk around the grounds that brought him to a statue that offered a viewpoint to the King’s quarters. Pallas had looked up and saw him, standing at the edge with his hands folded on top of the stone, staring into nothing. Pallas had thought a stampede of horses and a raid of arrows could hit the palace, and he didn’t think the Prince would notice.

They were walking through the yard together. The moon was a bright point in the sky, high and gleaming above them. Pallas’ mind would not stop running. Lazar was talking, telling him some story that Pallas could barely understand, like he had lost his entire grasp on the Veretian language. It was when Lazar paused, bending down to retie one of his boot laces that had come loose that Pallas looked down at his bent head and thought, _I can’t drag this any longer._

“Lazar.”

Lazar stopped in the middle of his sentence, glancing up. He was on one knee, his fingers still looping the ties. “What?”

Pallas looked away, gripping his chin and rubbing. He hadn’t actually planned anything to say, and the expectant look on Lazar’s face had his stomach churning. 

Lazar stood up, brushing the patch of dirt and grass off his knee and stepping forward. “What?” He repeated.

Pallas clenched his teeth together. The straightforward approach was what always seemed to work best. Nothing useful ever came out of subtlety and doublespeak. He lowered his hand to his side.

“The King is mostly healed,” he said.

Lazar blinked. “The King?”

“Yes.”

“I know,” Lazar nodded once. “I manned his rooms last night.” 

Pallas knew that. Lazar had come to his tent early in the morning, the sun barely visible when the rotation switched and Lazar was off his shift. He had been drained, only bothering to kick his shoes off before lying down next to him and falling straight to sleep.

“So you know,” Pallas said. “About the Prince’s plans.”

Lazar just looked at him. Pallas saw a muscle work in his jaw, otherwise unmoving. Pallas refused to be the first one to speak. He didn’t know what he would say if he did.

“The Prince never told us we were moving to Akielos,” Lazar eventually said. “It’s hardly news.”

“You’re leaving,” Pallas said. He heard the way his voice had changed, and he hated it. He remembered the jokes and taunts about his young age, and never had he felt the actual implications of it, never feeling as small and childlike as he did then. 

“I,“ Lazar rubbed a hand against his face, laughing against the skin of his palm. Pallas felt his heart twinge at the sound, like a seam stitched wrong, “don’t-“

Pallas wanted to shake him. He didn’t have the energy for games, and he didn’t think he could handle it. He had let things go for as long as he could manage, because he was selfish and stupid and didn’t want to let go. But he needed to.

“Why are you still here?” Pallas asked. _Why are you still with me?_

“What is that supposed to mean?” It came out strangled, like the conversation was irritating him. 

“You’re going to go back to Vere,” Pallas said. He dug his nail into his hand. “You’re going to fuck your way through half of the capital, and not give any of this a second thought. So why are you still-“ He didn’t finish, didn’t know how.

Lazar had taken a step back, away from him. Pallas hadn’t noticed when it happened, but the space between them was suddenly larger. He had stepped under an overhung tree, his beautiful face bathed in darkness. “Well,” he said. “At least I’ve left an impression.”

“Am I wrong?”

Lazar laughed again. It was shorter, less hysteric than the first time, and it only further made Pallas’ stomach feel like it was turning on itself, like a spit roast over a fire. Lazar lifted his shoulders, letting them drop after a second. 

“And you?” Lazar said. “When I’ve gone back to my lowly life choices, what will you be doing?”

“I-“ 

“Was this all just practice for your real future?” Lazar asked. “Different positions you could try out with your pretty new wife?”

Pallas thought he heard wrong for a moment. He could barely recognize the way Lazar was looking at him. He remembered, oddly, the night Lazar told him about a man form the Veretian camp who had betrayed his Prince. He shook the memory away. “What are you-“

“Tell me something,” Lazar went on. A lock of hair fell down his forehead, right above his eye. “When the Prince comes back to fuck his Akielon lover, will I be invited to your wedding?”

Pallas’ head was reeling. He didn’t understand- “Why are you talking about this?”

“Of course,” Lazar waved a hand. “I wouldn’t know how to properly recline, or what fork to use. Though Jord did have his fun with his own aristocrat, I suppose he could teach me.”

“ _Stop._ ”

“What do you want from me?” Lazar said, his light eyes going wide. Pallas didn’t know what to make of his tone, the way his voice was raising like he was moments away form shouting. His body was unnervingly still. He remained three paces away. It felt like a courtyard.

Pallas didn’t _know_ what he wanted. Or rather, he didn’t know where to begin. Parents that understood, that didn’t care who he chose. A birthright that didn’t dictate who he ended up with from the day he started walking. A life that was his, not a set of blueprints that he had to follow.

He wanted Lazar. That was all that he knew, all he could be sure of in this state of unstable limbs and painful breaths of air. He wanted Lazar with his strong will and his effortless assurance, his ambitions that he concealed with carelessness and his heart that he hid with walls. Walls that Pallas had somehow broken down, and was now watching go back up. He could see it just from looking at him and all he could think was, _he was never mine to keep._

“Lazar.” Pallas pressed his lips together, lowering his eyes. This was all wrong. “You don’t understand-“

“I understand,“ Lazar said. He spoke in a new, flat voice. “We were only fooling ourselves.” 

Pallas was shaking his head, desperate for him to understand. But for his own step forward, Lazar took a step back. Pallas felt it like a shield, and he had to stop himself from yelling into the night. _It’s not right,_ he wanted to shout. At himself, at the world. _This isn’t my choice. This isn’t what I want._

Lazar was turning away from him, his back all that he was now allowed. Pallas could practically see it all – the conversations, the private moments together, the stories and the laughs and the promises that they hadn’t even realized they were making – slipping away with each retreating step he took. Pallas watched as Lazar disappeared into the barracks, and wondered if his King also felt like he was losing a part of himself.

 

The days began to feel monotonous; a droning start to finish that had Pallas resenting everything. Nothing was surprising, not really. Any choice of timing or approach would have led to the same outcome, the same reality that they had to live in. It didn’t matter that Lazar was like a mirror in some ways and a fun challenge in others, or that he was the first person to make Pallas want to view things differently. None of that had any place to matter. Perhaps the only thing that surprised Pallas was how much it hurt.

He felt erratic at times, and unexpectedly calm at others, like a cord alternating between being constantly thrummed and then strung too tight. That morning he had walked into his tent and found a sealed parchment on his trunk, and he had only left to train after his bedroll was covered in shreds of unread paper. During the day, he navigated his duties like he was being controlled by an invisible hand, and then at dinner he had to repeat to himself that drinking his weight in wine would not morph him into a different man.

He rarely saw Lazar. Pallas told himself he wouldn’t, a self inflicted rule and reminder that turning the blade would only worsen the wound. He couldn’t seek him out, but that didn’t stop him from hoping to catch his eye across the hall or to cross paths with him in the yard. Evidently, it equally didn’t stop Lazar from avoiding that too at all costs.

There had been a time, a short period where Pallas had indulged himself in reckless fantasies of what it could be like. He’d imagined the high walls of his childhood home, the echoing rooms and the tables that could fit an entire retinue of men with a comfortable amount of space in between them and enough food to sate an army. Those moments usually came late at night, on his side, Lazar’s sleeping form curled up against him.

He pictured Lazar walking beside him, his livery and effervesced persona the most vibrant things in the room. In his mind’s eye he saw Lazar looking around and taking everything in, making some good-natured joke about Pallas’ upbringing or of how the brothels in Vere were more inviting. Pallas would scoff, or laugh, or push Lazar against a door and marvel at the fact that this was the first person he’d kissed in his home that was for him and not for show.

Pallas dragged himself out of the delusion with the harsh sound of his sword being unsheathed. He couldn’t forget the next part of the daydream, the one where Pallas’ mother smiled through Lazar’s awkward introduction that Pallas would find charming and she would find distasteful, or the way his father would eye the starburst on his sleeve and then look at Pallas like he had sown it there himself. 

Pallas adjusted the hilt in his grip, trudging out of the armory and into the training arena where he could try and find someone new to match him. He should have learned long ago, and it was his own fault that he hadn’t. Desponding over your fate would not create you a new one. 

 

It was the evening when Pallas strode through the palace halls, the shards of darkness peaking through the pillars and open windows indicating how long he had been on rotation throughout the entire day, alternating between his usual regime. It had been relatively uneventful, filled with the same things that Pallas was learning to let wash through him as he took each one in stride. He got up when it was time, fulfilled his obligations like he always would, and retired when it was over. Even his conversations were slowly minimizing, limited to Aktis and anyone who decided to speak to him first.

Pallas walked with his hand at the hilt, counting the moments until he could enter his solitude and allow the mask to unravel. He was good at that, he always had been, but lately what he craved was the isolation that allowed him the freedom to feel what he wanted, and to not care who saw. He turned a corner, his quickening pace stalling when he nearly walked into someone else. He refocused his attention, and then felt himself blanch.

“Exalted,” Pallas said.

He had known that the King was healed and mobile. Of course he had known, it was all that registered each time he went to sleep alone and woke up to a dreadful pit in his stomach. Still, the last person he had been expecting to collide with was his King.

It had been weeks since Pallas had been face to face with the King, any recent sights of him limited to a fleeting glance in the yard or when guarding his sickroom. He had faced more with him than he ever could have possibly dreamt; the experiences feeling like no amount of ambition or striving could make him deserving. He stiffened his spine, telling himself not to fumble.

“Soldier,” the King responded in acknowledgment. He didn’t appear to be in any sort of rush, and his calm proximity only caused Pallas to straighten his back further.

“It is good to see you well, Exalted,” Pallas said, and then flushed at his own daring. He crossed his hands behind him, silent.

But the King smiled at him, closed mouthed and warm. His nod was short. “Thank you, Pallas.”

Pallas lifted his head, and he could instantly feel as his flush spread, heat cascading down the back of his neck with it. The King seemed to notice, his grin spreading briefly as Pallas fought to maintain eye contact.

“I remember our match,” the King said. “You were a worthy contender.”

Pallas felt overwhelmed with pride. Never would he have imagined that his King would remember who he was on sight, let alone a meager wrestling match between them. Sport came naturally to him, as he was sure it did to the King. The concept of standing out on his own merit was breaking his mind open.

The King nodded again in farewell. “As you were,” he said, stepping around him and making his way down the rest of the hall, turning the corner and leaving Pallas alone.

Pallas let out a long breath of air, stopping himself from pressing a hand to the wall. He thought of manning the King’s tent or the night in Marlas where they had sat a few couches apart, and the time he had been appointed to guard the Lady Jokaste’s cell. He thought of participating in the okton, or the days and nights on the road with a selected group, a handful of disguises and the personal assistance to his King and a foreign Prince. Those memories were his. His makings, his successes. 

Pallas could have died. He could have not been strong enough, not ambitious enough, but he had prevailed. No matter where his birth had started him, he was the only person responsible for where he was now. He was in the capital, fighting for his kingdom. He was recognized by his rightful King. And no matter what happened, those things would always remain his, because he had fought for them himself.

Pallas was breathing hard, recognitions and mistakes pounding through his mind. He had sacrificed enough, but he wouldn’t do it any longer. All of his life he had had the same concepts hammered into his head: honor to his family, honor to his country, honor to his King. It was a code that he had lived by, and always would. He had his priorities, but he refused to lose himself in the process. He refused to lose anything.

 

The barracks were the last place Pallas looked. He’d searched the hall where the soldiers dined, the training arena and the armory, even the stables. The idea of Lazar moving on to someone new once Pallas was given away had always plagued him, and he wasn’t quite strong enough to push away the possibility as he checked each place, frantic. He knew from personal experience that Lazar was never one to wait until he found appropriate seclusion when desire struck him, but Pallas ignored the burning in his lungs and the horrible possibility as he sought him out.

He found him in the room at the end of the hall, having tried each one until he came to the last, torches lit and flickering. Two men that Pallas didn’t recognize were seated on a bunk, Lazar laying on an otherwise unoccupied one with his eyes closed, his legs pushed up so the soles of his feet were flat against the wall. He was awake, Pallas could tell from the ceaseless drumming of his fingers against his abdomen.

“Out,” Pallas said, looking at the two men. They gave him a strange look, but apparently didn’t care enough about their whereabouts because they each stood, one of their shoulders bumping into Pallas’ as they walked passed him. He weathered it.

Pallas turned his head back to Lazar, only to see him in the same position, not even opening his eyes at the sound of Pallas’ voice. He felt a slight pang at that, though it was notably won out by the way it felt to see Lazar again. It felt like ages since they’d spoken, since he’d held him. “Lazar.”

Lazar didn’t budge. He made a grunting sound, feet changing position so the left ankle was crossed over the right.

Pallas licked his lips, turning to check the entrance before clearing his throat, stepping closer. “I’ve come to talk.”

“All right,” Lazar said. He opened his eyes, turning his head. 

“All right,” Pallas repeated, unsure what else to say, or how to begin. He felt awkward and inexperienced, entering a battle with no prior knowledge of the terrain, no contingency plan. He sat on the bunk opposite Lazar, wringing his hands between his spread knees. 

It was silent for a few seconds. Lazar sighed, eventually dropping his legs and pivoting his body. He swung his feet off the cot and turned so he was mirroring Pallas’ position, looking straight ahead. “Come to say goodbye?”

“I don’t want to,” Pallas said. He couldn’t imagine anything worse.

Lazar’s expression did a strange thing. His brows twisted before he blinked, straightening the lines in his face. He brought his hands to his sides, shrugging. “Well,” he said. “I’m leaving.”

Pallas nodded.

“Did you come to-“ 

“Lazar,” Pallas said. 

Lazar closed his mouth, eyeing him blankly. Pallas looked back at him, wishing he were better at expressing himself. He’d always thought Lazar was the one who staggered through these conversations, but it was like he’d lost any ability to formulate a proper sentence. He breathed in.

“I’m sorry,” Pallas said.

Lazar didn’t say anything. Pallas pushed his thumbs into his knees, searching for the words.

“What I said to you. It... I-“

Lazar made another face. Pallas watched him shift on the mattress. “We don’t-“

“No,” Pallas interrupted. “No. You need to understand, it all came out wrong.”

Lazar looked down and away, his pointer finger tapping against his leg. He didn’t remove his gaze from the floor.

“Nothing,” Pallas said. “Has ever been in my hands. My schooling, my training, every aspect of my life has been decided for me. I’ve been held to certain standards-“ Lazar’s expression pinched. “And it’s all I’ve ever known.”

“I know,” Lazar said. “You have a duty. I’ve always known,” He rubbed his thighs. “That I’m not-“

“Don’t,” Pallas spoke over him. He couldn’t bear to see that desolate look in Lazar’s eyes again. “Please.”

“This might come as a shock,” Lazar smiled sourly, tired looking. “But this isn’t the first time I’ve been walked away from.”

Pallas hated so much in that moment. Whatever it was that had taken Lazar’s mother from him. An absent father, no reason seeming like enough to justify not wanting him as a son. Anyone who’d made him think he was easy to leave behind. Himself, for being one of those people.

Pallas stood up from the bed. The metal creaked, the release of his weight being the loudest thing in the room. Lazar tilted his head back as he rose, quirking a brow when Pallas came forward so that he was looking down at him. The playfulness of it felt so safe, so familiar that it might have brought him to his knees, had his heart not been pounding so hard.

“Get up,” Pallas said.

Lazar raised both eyebrows. “You’re full of demands tonight.”

“Get,” Pallas said, “up.”

Lazar stood. It was a tight fit from how close Pallas was, his back pressed against the metal rod of the bed, their chests only inches apart. He waited patiently.

Pallas placed a hand on the highest bunk behind Lazar, his arm extending so it was closing him in on one side. He could hear his pulse drumming in his ears.

“I remember,” Pallas said. “What you said to me about your Prince. About being here.” He looked into his eyes. “And you’re right. I know nothing about the choices you’ve made.”

He was so close. It had only been a few days, but he longed to feel Lazar’s skin so badly, he thought the desire must be clear on his face.

“All I know are my own choices,” Pallas continued. “And how I’ve never made any of my own. Until now.”

Lazar frowned. He was quiet.

“I don’t care,” Pallas raised his other hand, keeping him where he was. “About what my family wants for me. They don’t get to decide who I choose.”

Lazar’s eyes were dancing in the firelight. Pallas watched as he touched the side of his neck, averting his gaze. His voice, when he spoke, was pitched. “I don’t understand.”

“Yes,” Pallas said. “You do.”

His hand didn’t move from his nape, squeezing at the skin as his jaw worked. His throat rolled before he looked back at him. “You’ll lose your birthright.”

“But not this,” Pallas said.

Pallas could see the conflict on his face, the way he was struggling not to turn away or mask the comment with something to make him feel safe. It was a long moment before he spoke. “You have a duty,” he repeated.

Pallas touched his shoulder. “I want you.”

Silence. It was loud and profound, and terrifying. 

And then Lazar was kissing him.

It was hard and searing. It was Lazar’s hands cupping his cheeks, Pallas’ fingers curled around Lazar’s wrists so he could keep him there, rough and sweet and everything Pallas wanted. It was every moment together that they had lost, made up in desperate touches and two bodies that couldn’t get close enough. 

Then Lazar’s hands were at his chest, pushing. Pallas could feel the way he was heaving under his hands, Lazar swallowing past the loss of air.

“I’m leaving,” Lazar said, though he still tilted his head back when Pallas kissed under his chin, beside his ear. His mouth was open and wet, wanting nothing more than to taste his skin. He never wanted to forget how it felt.

“I don’t care,” Pallas said, kissing him again. He held his head in his hands, longing turning into something else entirely when Lazar’s hands raked his back. “I’ll see you again.”

Lazar slid a thigh between his own, biting into his neck when Pallas rubbed against him. He felt unchained, unleashed, free to take and hold and do whatever he wished. Lazar’s thumb traced his lip, tugging it down as he licked into his mouth. Pallas thought, the stars could fall from the sky and he wouldn’t notice.

It was worth it all. Pallas would have his men, his position, the things he had molded himself. And even if he didn’t, even if he lost it all, it wouldn’t matter. He had this.

**Author's Note:**

> [ @laurent-ofvere](http://laurent-ofvere.tumblr.com)   
> 


End file.
